Act IV/Scenes I and II

As the sum of the first and second scenes of Act IV are considerably shorter than the previous acts, the plot for both of them is given in one page.

Scene I
Plot


 * Titania tells Bottom to sit down on the flower bed. As Bottom is also in the mood, he confidently gives commands to the Fairies.


 * Titania asks Bottom to play music or not, and Bottom accepts this offer (as in "I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let's have the tongs and the bones.")


 * As the music starts, she asks him what he will eat, and Bottom says that he is very hungry for a bottle of hay (An evidence that Bottom has really turned into a donkey, as hay is a substance that belongs to not humans' diet but only omnivorous animals like donkeys' diet) Titania says that she has a Fairy that will seek the nuts of a squirrel for him. However, Bottom refuses this and says that he would rather "have a handful or two of dried peas"


 * Then Titania tells Bottom to sleep. When he is asleep, Titania sings a song for him and says she loves him very much (as in "O how I love thee! How I dote on thee!"). Then she starts sleeping too.


 * Soon, Oberon and Puck enter the scene. Oberon tells Puck that he had achieved his goal of having the Indian boy and now he could release Titania from the charm. Then he gives him a scalp and tells him to drop the scalp into Titania's eyes.


 * When the scalp is dropped into her eyes, Titania is woken up by Oberon. She tells Oberon that she had a dream where she was "enamour'd of an ass" (note that word "ass" here is the archaic version of the word "donkey")


 * Then Oberon tells Titania precisely about what happened. Titania asks Oberon to tell more about how come she saw such a dream, as they start to fly and exit the scene (as in "Come my Lord, and in our flight, / Tell me how it came this night, / That I sleeping here was found, / With these mortals on the ground")
 * After they exit the scene, Theseus, Egeus and Hippolyta come to the place where Demetrius, Lysander Hermia and Helena sleep on. Note that this section also contains the first time that Hippolyta speaks.
 * Theseus seems to be displeased by this and he makes the huntsmen wake them up. When they wake up, he tells them that St. Valentine is past and asks them why they are "coupling". Lysander tells him that they are very sorry for this. Meanwhile, he also confesses that he had gone to the forest with Hermia to escape from Athens and Demetrius confesses that he loves Helena but not Hermia.
 * Egeus furies when he hears these, and he tells Theseus that he has heard enough to punish them and make Demetrius marry Hermia. However, he is not regarded much by Theseus.
 * Theseus tells the couples that they have "fortunately met". He also tells them to follow him to Athens. After Theseus and his train exit the scene, the couples think that this might be a dream, but it does not take a long time for them to understand that this is real. Then they exit too.
 * After the couples exit, Bottom awakens. He indirectly tells the audience that he will make his dream of having turned into a donkey a ballad, and he will play it at the end of the play before the Duke.

Scene II
Plot


 * Quince, Flute, Snout and Starveling nervously enter the scene. They are looking for Bottom, who was previously their supervisor in the rehearsals. Then Snug comes and tells the group that the Duke is coming from the Temple and he is going to have two or three more ladies and men to get married. The group gets happy when they hear these news, as they think that they are going to receive more salary.


 * Soon, by the entrance of Bottom to the scene, this happiness increases even more. Bottom tells them nothing about how he "thought" of having become a donkey and not to ask anything about what happened to him. Then he tells them to rehearse well for tomorrow, when they will also play it before the Duke and not to eat garlic or onion to "utter sweet breath". Finally, he tells them to go away.